The flooring system may be an important and expensive component of a shipping container. The flooring used in a shipping container may be made of wood, such as hardwood, including tropical and Asian hardwoods. The hardwood may be formed into plywood flooring. The flooring may be supported by a steel sub-floor. A shipping container floor may need to handle the rigorous demands of cargo transport, and may need to be durable, resilient, and cost effective to maintain, repair and clean.
As the demand for certain types of wood, for example, Asian hardwoods, for use as shipping container flooring increases, the quality and quantity of the wood available may decline. This may make it harder to procure enough wood of good enough quality to be used as shipping container floors, which may reduce the number of shipping containers that can be produced, or reduce the quality of the flooring of the containers that are produced.
A shipping container's flooring, under normal operating conditions, should last the entire useful life of the container. If a container's flooring fails prematurely, the flooring or possibly the entire container may need to be replaced. The additional wood that is required in replacement of the failed floor may exert greater demands on available supplies of hardwood. The flooring may also be required to meet standards, for example, standards set by the International Organization for Standardization, standards governing TIR and TCT certification, or standards found in agreements such as the International Convention for Safe Containers.
The object of the embodiments of the present inventions provide flooring for shipping containers requiring less wood than flooring currently in use, resulting in lower maintenance and repair costs for the flooring while still allowing the flooring to be strong enough to meet the various standards and requirements for shipping container floorings, including supporting certain maximum load weight without failing.